1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to bottle aligners and bottle orientation machines. More particularly, this invention relates to automatic bottle orientation machines in which a continuous flow of aligned but disoriented bottles is automatically oriented neck end up onto a conveyor.
2. Description of the Background Art
A wide variety of types, shapes and sizes of bottles are currently in use for packaging of substances. One of the most common shapes of a bottle for liquids includes a main body portion and a neck portion through which the liquid contents are poured from and into the bottle. For efficient processing such bottles must be oriented so as to align them in a vertical neck-up position with minimum breakage of bottles if they consist of glass or other brittle material.
In known arrangements for orienting bottles, necked bottles are received in a horizontal position and then fed along a predetermined path so as to assume a vertical position for further processing, filling, etc. One of such arrangements is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,146,124 in which bottles are fed aligned in a side by side fashion. This does not preclude skewing of bottles as they are fed along the feeding path. The above-mentioned deficiency can lead to costly and time consuming jam up and break down of the arrangement.
In other known arrangements, the stream of horizontally aligned bottles is captured by a rotating vertical wheel and passed alongside of a snare. The snare attempts to snare the end of the bottle and orient it to an upright position. If the approaching bottle is being fed neck first, the snare grasps the necked end of the bottle and orients it to an upright position. Conversely, if the bottle is being fed bottom first, the snare fails to grasp the end of the bottle to orient it. The bottle is then ejected and re-fed into the wheel. Continuous operation eventually results in upright orientation of all the bottles albeit statistically one half of the bottles must be repeatedly refed into the wheel until proper neck first positioning in the wheel is attained.
Still further known arrangements are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,831,738, 3,722,659, 3,338,373 and 3,295,659 assigned to the same assignee as this invention. Of these, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,722,659 and 3,831,738 achieve vertical orientation of the bottles by moving the bottles upwardly along a graduated center rail or two side rails which forces the necked end of the bottle upwardly until the bottle is fully erect. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,295,659 and 3,338,373 disclose orientation arrangements in which the bottles fall through a chute, bottom end first, onto a conveyor for later processing.
Each of the various orientation arrangements disclosed above has disadvantages associated therewith including limitations of the style and type of bottles capable of being oriented and the speed and reliability of operation.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide an apparatus and a method which overcomes the aforementioned inadequacies of the prior art devices and provides an improvement which is a significant contribution to the advancement of bottle orientation art.
Another object of the invention is to provide an improved bottle orientation machine which operates to automatically orient and right a continuous flow of bottles onto a conveyor such that the rate of flow of the bottles is not reduced.
Another object of the invention is to provide an improved bottle orientation machine which may be easily incorporated into existing lines of packaging machinery.
Another object of the invention is to provide an improved bottle orientation machine which is economical to manufacture and therefore cost effective over existing orientation machines.
Another object of the invention is to provide an improved bottle orientation machine which may be operated at speeds and throughput greater than that of existing orientation machines with minimal misfeeds or jams.
Another object of the invention is to provide an improved bottle orientation machine which comprises a simple design thereby significantly increasing the life of the machine while reducing the maintenance costs.
The foregoing has outlined some of the more pertinent objects of the invention. These objects should be construed to be merely illustrative of some of the more prominent features and applications of the intended invention. Many other beneficial results can be attained by applying the disclosed invention in a different manner or modifying the invention within the scope of the disclosure. Accordingly, other objects and a fuller understanding of the invention may be had by referring to the summary of the invention and the detailed description of the preferred embodiment in addition to the scope of the invention defined by the claims taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.